She gave me a look that said she was aware her body had been betraying her for some time, but couldn’t find a compelling argument to sway me. With a heavy, put-upon sigh, she took two more sips before she set the cup firmly on the tray with a narrowed glare at me. I suppressed a smile at her small act of defiance.
“Food,” Malric said, and held out a piece of bread slathered with honey butter.
She looked at it like it had personally offended her and she folded her arms in front of her. “I don’t want it.”
“I know you don’t want it.”
“Then why?—”
“Because what you want and what you need are different things right now,” he said, calmly, implacably. “Two bites.”
She sullenly reached for the bread, but he held it out of reach. “From my hands.”
She glared at him but opened her mouth. Ate two bites with pointed precision, eyes fixed on Malric the entire time as if challenging him. I smothered a laugh, turning my head so they wouldn’t see me, though I saw Malric’s own lips pressed together to hide his smile, so I knew I wasn’t alone. After the second bite, when he held the bread up to her mouth, she pointedly turned her head.
“No more,” she said.
He paused for a moment, then, with exaggerated carefulness, placed the bread on the plate and set it aside.
She settled back into the furs and was quiet for a moment. I watched her shoulders relax by degrees, the small adjustments of a body settling into the temporary comfort of the window between waves. Her hair was loose around her, still slightly damp at the temples from earlier, and her scent in the nest had become something deeply integrated with mine and Malric’s, the three of us overlapping and entwining in a way that felt pleasant and something else.
Right. That was the word. It registered as right.
Her face was growing flush and a light sheen was gathering on her skin. Her scent was saturating the air, deeper and heavier than earlier. As if catching up to the changes her body had made, her breathing changed. Not dramatically, not all at once. A slight quickening, a small catch. Her hand moved to her stomach, pressing flat, and she went still.
“No,” she said quietly to no one in particular.
“I know,” I said, stroking over her arms.
“I thought—” She stopped. “I really hoped it was done, despite what you told me.”
“It builds faster after the first break,” Malric said. He was already moving, shifting position in the nest, settling her in frontof him carefully. Her shoulders tightened, but he eased her back against him, gently running his hands over her skin.
“I’m scared,” she said, her voice wavering.
I moved in front of her until I was kneeling, forcing her to focus on only me. “Look at me.”
She did. Her eyes were still clear, but the edges of the heat were visible now. The faint flush climbing her throat, the way her breath was coming slightly too fast, the way her pupils had expanded and filled her eyes. She was holding herself braced, waiting for the wave to hit and bracing herself for it.
I put my hands on either side of her face.
“You’re not enduring this. That’s not what this is. You don’t grit your teeth through it. You move with it.” I held her gaze. “We’re right here—both of us. You don’t have to manage anything. We’ll make sure you enjoy it. Didn’t you enjoy it?”
She blushed a pretty shade of deep red. “I did like it,” she admitted in a tiny voice, her head tucked down.
“I know,” I said. “We’ll make it good for you, Omega.”
Heat flared in her eyes, but before she could speak, I kissed her. Not softly, not the sweet kisses from before. I kissed her as if I’d been thinking about kissing her for the past hour, which I had. Slowly, the tension in her muscles dissolved as her hands found my arms, digging tiny crescents from her nails, and her body decided this was a better option than bracing.
Malric’s hands moved over her back from behind. She sucked in a quick breath as she registered both of us touching her, but I deepened the kiss before she could think about it too carefully. Her scent spiked, the honey flavored with silver blossoms hanging heavy in the room.
The heat in the room jumped several degrees, and my response to it was immediate and not subtle. I’d managed to keep control while she slept, the proximity and her scent asustained test of my self-control that I had passed through sheer bloody-mindedness. The window on that was closing.
I pulled back from the kiss far enough to breathe.
Her eyes were darker. The glaze was coming back in, the heat taking hold, and she looked at me with a hunger that spoke of the heat and demand, rather than any kind of fear or tension.
“Thane,” she said, a hint of a whine in her voice, the omega side begging to be satisfied.
